


Cherish Me

by orphan_account



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, Past Child Abuse, Self-Harm, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-10
Updated: 2016-04-09
Packaged: 2018-05-25 21:58:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,277
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6211792
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He wishes it were still black. His closed eyes only mimic the feeling of nothingness. In the dark there had been no bed beneath his body, no ground beneath his feet. There had been no body at all, he thinks foggily. No real substance, nothing to catch him because there was nothing to be caught….</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. through the dark

Sherlock opens his eyes.

There is a very bright light pressing in from all sides.

He closes his eyes again. He doesn’t like the light anymore than he likes this return to consciousness.

There are needles in his hands. If he doesn’t move them he can barely feel them. He has a vague memory of being stuck again and again in the crooks of his unfeeling elbows, the nurse failing to find an undamaged vein in both of his arms, of another nurse coming. Then it went black.

He wishes it were still black. His closed eyes only mimic the feeling of nothingness. In the dark there had been no bed beneath his body, no ground beneath his feet. There had been no body at all, he thinks foggily. No real substance, nothing to catch him because there was nothing to be caught….

Here his wrists are ties to the bed. His ankles, too. Rough papery sheets. Disposable. There is a steady _beep-beep_ coming from his right. It reeks of disinfectant, of hospital. His throat hurts, clenched tight from dryness. Swallowing only makes it rasp together painfully. Strange, this lack of moisture, when his eyes are almost spilling….

A presence on his left.

“Sherlock…” it whispers, “you’re alright. Open your eyes.”

He considers opening them, considers shaking his head. After the darkness, his body feels disconnected from him. It’s barely his anymore. He remains still.

“Sherlock. Please?”

He considers speech.

“Sherlock. Open your eyes. You’re scaring me.”

The voice isn’t whispering anymore. It is harsh and real.

“N—” Sherlock tries and his throat screams is stuck together and his body heaves tries to cough through his sealed shut throat—and it makes him nauseous and he can barely breathe—and his body strains of its own accord against the restraints causing dull pain in his wrists….

Having a body is a burden.

“Sherlock! Breathe. Breathe.”

A hand on his shoulder. Its thumb rubbing circles. A straw prodding at his mouth. He sucks, swallows. His body feels better after the water. He drifts off, but it’s a solid drifting, and he knows he’ll live.

 

When he wakes again it is to a hand bleeding warmth onto his shoulder. Another wipes moisture from his cheeks.

So he’s crying. Odd, his body’s way of functioning. His mind is a dry wasteland.

“It’s alright now. You don’t have to open your eyes. It’s alright,” John says. “Do you want me to…?” A pause. “Yeah, ‘course you do.” Resolute. “You’re going to be here for a while, Sherlock. You nicked an artery, OD’d. They’re going to do a psych test, but you’re fine. You’re alright. Jesus Christ. You’re going to be alright. You—you—I don’t know—but you’re ok, you’re alright.”

The words breeze over him. He stays in that dark place, but gives a sniff. John concludes correctly from this sniff that he’s listening.

“My god, Sherlock…” A hand returns to his cheek, wiping away the tears.

He moves his hands weakly, wrists caught in an undignified manner.

“You going to do that again?”

He’s caught in the question. _No_ , he wants to say, to please John, but…

He rolls over as well as he can with undignified wires sticking out of him, and sobs, his tears soaking the pillow.

How he wishes he weren’t alive.

“Oh, Sherlock,” John whispers.


	2. the dead are the most cooperative

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He doesn’t speak. Doesn’t think about speaking. He thinks about nothing at all.

He eats. He takes his medication. He doesn’t pull at the thick bandages wrapped around his forearms. He doesn’t try to pick the cuffs that still restrain his ankles. He lets the nurses lift his dead weight, strip him, wash him, redress him. He sleeps. He is docile and cooperative. They take the IVs out the next day.

John sits next to the bed, alternating between playing on his laptop and reading the paper. It is the one thing that bothers Sherlock; he wishes John wouldn’t pretend to be so concerned. Soon John will leave for work, just for half a day, he’ll say, then a whole day, then two days, an entire week. Sherlock lays with his back to him, ignoring the slow rustle of the paper, the slow tapping of the keyboard.

He stares at the ceiling. He doesn’t count the tiles. He lets the dim buzz of the light fixture permeate through his head. He listens to the clock ticking. Ticking away, pounding into him, louder and louder. Time passing. It means little to him and he lets it wipe away his thoughts. His body aches.

The door opens. He doesn’t look over. He hears John stand.

“Good morning, Dr Watson.” A woman.

“Good morning, Doctor. Should I…?”

“Yes, if you wouldn’t mind stepping out for a moment.”

“Right. Sherlock?” A hand rests on his shoulder for a second. “You’ll be alright?”

He doesn’t know. The silence stretches out. A hole where his voice should be, where he should be.

“I’ll be right back after the Doctor’s done talking to you, Sherlock,” John says. “I’ll bring you some tea, yeah?”

He doesn’t know. He doesn’t know if he wants John to come back. Alone suits him now. Tea is an insurmountable decision.

“Okay. See you later, Sherlock.” The hand leaves his shoulder. Footsteps and the door swinging shut.

He remains on his side facing away from the door and the visitor’s chair, where the doctor takes a seat. She wears lavender perfume. Normally it would bother him but he doesn’t care. The irritation sinks into him almost gracefully, into his dead weight.

“Hello, Mr. Holmes,” the woman says. “I’m Dr. Stead.” She has a low, mellow voice. “I’m your psychiatrist, for now. I’m going to ask you some questions to gauge your current mental state and mental history, alright?”

He doesn’t acknowledge her.

The doctor continues—and she’s either used to this, the dull suicide patients, or she doesn’t have time to indulge him. “I’ll start by asking you how you feel right now.”

God.

He lies there, and he chants that word slowly in his head, meditating on it like his mind has snagged itself on the word and keeps up the demented meaningless prayer just so it can—

He can hear a pen on paper. Clipboard on wool skirt. It’s easier to observe than to think. Observe what he can. He can’t move. He can’t turn over. Thinking is hard.

“We’ll leave those questions for later, then. Now I’m going to ask you about your previous history. Have you ever had a previous attempt?”

He shuts his eyes. His ears are attacked by sound. Tick tock tick tock. Pen on paper. Buzz of light.

“Have you ever taken drugs?”

He opens his eyes. Too bright. Too much.

“Have you ever self-harmed?”

He closes his eyes.

“How do you feel about your job?”

Her voice, it’s too much. His hands come almost of their own accord to creep up and cover his ears. Then he pushes down, hard, and muffles the sound.

The doctor’s next question. It sounds like, “An ha u a smnh sour o inom?”

He laughs.

A cold hand removing his left hand. “Mr. Holmes, I realize you are under an amount of stress currently, but you do need to take these questions seriously. They do affect what courses your treatment will take.”

_…affect… courses… treatment…._

“Are you listening, Mr. Holmes?”

He’ll be….

“Mr. Holmes?”

He’ll be… _sectioned_ , something in him supplies helpfully. The threats are always veiled. He rolls over and stares at the doctor for he doesn’t know how long. She is blonde. She blinks back at him. She wins. He looks away.

She is nothing to him. He doesn’t care. He is nothing. He feels nothing. He is no one. He has no past. Nothing to tell her. He floats. He shuts his eyes.

He doesn’t speak. Doesn’t think about speaking. He thinks about nothing at all. He is very cloudy. Eventually the doctor leaves.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To be continued. Feedback is very welcome and encouraging.


	3. find me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I need you I need you

A nurse brings him his next meal shortly after the doctor leaves. He eats it, remembering the times Mummy stared him down at meal times. _Eat,_ she would say and she was persuasive in her own quiet violence. _Eat._ He feels sick. He eats, swallowing down nausea. He doesn’t know what else to do.

“No…” he hears John’s voice drift through the door. He thinks his mind fixes on things as a distraction. “No, there’s never been… evidence… attempt…”

“Yes, his records… but I wanted to check because…”

“You’d have to… his brother, but… always seemed fine…”

“No self-harm?”

“No… but it’s… who knows?”

He was sixteen years old. Mycroft had been visiting for the summer. He found him in the garden. The smell of hyacinths all around him. Mycroft knows everything about him, the cuts and the scars, the drugs, the cigarettes. “Be quiet, Mummy can’t know,” he’d whispered as he held Sherlock’s hair while he vomited up drugs. And later, he’d been in his bedroom, quiet, and he’d heard Mycroft say, “…he’s staying with a friend… science project… yes, he’s an irresponsible boy, Mummy, I’m sorry….”

It’s not on his medical records. Mycroft is very competent.

 _Eat._ He eats. His stomach feels so strange! His wrists are weak as he lifts cakey meatloaf to his lips; his fingers tingle.

“No… I don’t… Mycroft…”

“Yes… observation…”

“… won’t like that…”

“…the rules…”

When he was five, Mycroft found him in his room. His body hurt from his session with Mummy in the study. His stomach was triumphantly empty. He lay on his bed and didn’t look up when the door was flung open and his brother strode in. “Idiot,” Mycroft said, throwing him a worn stuffed bear and a soft blanket. Mycroft was tall for a twelve-year-old. “I’ll eat your food next time, just don’t make a fuss.”

And the next time Mummy stared at him and said, “I love you. Now eat,” Sherlock cut his food up and pushed it around his plate the way Mycroft told him to and every time Mummy looked away, Mycroft silently scooped some of his food into his mouth.

Mummy never found out. Mycroft is very competent. Mycroft left for Eton when Sherlock was seven.

His stomach gurgles—excess saliva pools his mouth. He takes measured breaths against the sour saliva, swallows it down carefully.

“…any idea…?”

“No… not responsive… concerning…”

“He’s stubborn…”

He spears a single pea on his fork and brings it to his mouth. It looks big. His stomach churns. And then it happens so suddenly—his lap is full of vomit. He throws up again, silently, the smell making his mouth water sickeningly. He looks at the sick weakly, letting his stomach cut off his airway briefly, trying not to panic. He does a good job of it—he realizes he doesn’t need to try not to panic because he’s not panicking at all—he’s wondering whether he should angle the bed down so that can let the vomit pool in his mouth, clog his airway. He can’t move his legs anyway, and he can’t move his arms because they _ache_ and his head hurts…

“Sherlock!”

John is running towards him, setting his briefcase down, taking the food tray off his lap. “Christ, Sherlock, why didn’t you say you felt ill?” John scolds as the doctor and several nurses come in.

“Stand back, sir,” one of the nurses says, shooing John away. John complies—as a doctor, he knows how these things work. The nurse begins stripping him, handling him, but Sherlock keeps his eyes fixed on John. John seems calm enough and it strikes Sherlock, as he passively lets the nurses do their work, that he doesn’t know if he’d like John to be concerned or not. If John were worried—if he fussed—Sherlock would find that annoying. But John’s calmness could be because he just doesn’t care about him.

Alone protects him anyway. He gives one last retch and struggles against the pressure at the back of his throat and gasps for air. The nurses change him and wipe him down and finally leave.

“Sherlock,” John says, approaching again, feeling his forehead. “Do you still feel sick?”

 _No. Maybe._ Sherlock stares at John. His face is close and he can see John’s eyes—grey in the bland hospital light—blink, blonde lashes dusting over his cheeks.

“Sherlock, I know you understand me. Please say something.”

“Where is the tea?”

“What?”

“The tea,” Sherlock says. He feels like his first words should be monumental, but his throat scratches and his mouth feels icky. “You said you would bring me tea!”

John blinks. “One minute,” he promises, “I left it outside.” And John runs. He returns in a blink of an eye. “It’s right here Sherlock,” he says, putting the tea on the bedside table.

His chest aches and his breaths come quickly and he has doesn’t know why. He holds his breath and tightens his jaw. He opens his eyes wide so the tears don’t spill out and when they don’t stop coming he ducks his head away, screaming silently into his pillow.

He feels the side of the bed compress. A hand on his own. He tugs his hand away. Worthless. Utterly worthless.

John seeps onto the bed. John seeps into his arms. He struggles for a bit at the alien sensation. He lets it engulf him. He feels so small. He moves his face from the pillow to John’s shoulder. John is wearing a scratchy wool jumper. John’s clavicle digs into his cheekbone. _(When Mycroft found out about the cutting—home one winter break—he got that look in his eyes, that faraway look that extends to his straightened shoulders and cold lips. He taught him how to hide it. Mummy would be upset if she found out. He taught him how to sanitize the area. How to keep his razors clean. Mycroft’s long pale fingers around his small hands. Hard eyes telling him to be careful. He’s older now and wonders what else Mycroft could have done for him.)_ John holds his aching body, his tired eyes. I need you I need you. His body carrying secrets and hurt. John holds it.

Scratchy jumper and bone on bone and warm solid arms around him rocking slightly. He dreams of weightlessness and unreality.

 


	4. rebirth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He doesn’t want his pity but without it he is unlovable.

The thing is, when you kill yourself and come back to life, things don’t exactly stay the same. John touches him more, seems to like holding his hand. The vomiting—the panic attacks—they keep happening, and what’s more is they’re new. He can barely keep any food down at all. And he’s so tired all the time. More than he ever was. This is bone deep weariness.

There is no more hiding and no more dignity. John knows… _things_ about him now. They’d briefed him—Holmes’s good doctor friend. And his hospital gown is short sleeved. He doesn’t like to think about it, but he knows pity is what drives John nowadays, and he wishes for when John looked at him with new life in his eyes—when he was so brilliant he made people want to live. But he’s broken now.

But when John touches him, he can’t help but lean into him. He’s never had anything like it. No warm touches. Nothing so monumental as a hand in his hair, stroking him like an animal, like something innocent, something inherently deserving. He has no power in the face of John. He thinks he might give everything to him when he’s in his arms.

He doesn’t want his pity but without it he is unlovable.

Like now, when John is curled around him, waiting for the nurse to bring him his breakfast (ugh). One arm is draped across him like it’s nothing at all. They just breathe together and Sherlock is reminded of the fact that John is alive, of all the machinations working under his skin. And the sound of John’s breathing, the way it skitters warmly against his neck is unbelievable. How can John do this with so many people? With all those boring women, too.

This is nothing to John and Sherlock feels alone.

“Hey,” John mutters into his neck. “Stop it.”

Sherlock huffs, watching his breath disturb John’s hair. “I’m not doing anything.”

“Yes you are,” John says, adjusting his hold on him. “I can hear you thinking.”

“That’s my line.”

The morning light plays in John’s hair, making it light, golden. The grey intermingling is like gentle dust sweeping through a little golden valley. The geography of John’s face has always fascinated him and now he’s close enough to touch. Little craggy wrinkles, small crater-like pores. That ever-changing mouth.

John doesn’t answer, but traces his hand down Sherlock’s face, glancing over him. His hand wanders down his arm—Sherlock shudders—and rests on his forearm.

When John’s hand is there, his scars are covered. Sherlock stiffens, watching John’s hand as still as it is. It is an alien sensation. He’s used to cold sharp razors gliding through his flesh there, tickling as it ravages and cuts ribbons of his skin. He’s used to needles and punctures and cuts. He’s frozen and John is warm and dangerous.

Now is the time, then, when John finally asks. And when he gets the answer, he will withdraw. There will be nothing to pity anymore, not when he knows Sherlock is as damaged and as ugly as anything.

“Sherlock…”

“I’m not going to give you a sob story, John.”

“Sherlock…”

“Why are you repeating yourself? Do you have amnesia?”

“No,” John huffs a little laugh. “I’m… just wondering, you know, if you’re feeling any better than—well—”

Something about the situation makes tears jump to his eyes. He’s trapped and desperate in John’s touch, his words, his breath. The way John can’t acknowledge it, him. He shudders and rocks. There’s something wrong with him. He never used to have these mood swings.

“I’m sorry,” John says, placing a hand on his shoulder. “I’m sorry, Sherlock, did I say the wrong thing?”

It’s too much. He needs John to take his hand off his arm. He feels exposed and naked. “You need to go to work,” he says, and he seems to have lost his ability to be sharp, too, because he only sounds matter of fact.

“I—Sherlock—”

“I don’t need you living here, either, John. You think I haven’t noticed? You’re pathetic. I don’t need you.”

Facing away from John doesn’t deter him. Solid arms wrap around him anyway, catching him from behind. “I’m not leaving you,” John says calmly. “And the fact that you’re here because you attempted suicide kind of says that you do need me. So. Getting me mad won’t work.”

Sherlock curls into himself, fighting the tears. So John’s learned to see through his bullshit. And hearing it so baldly put makes it feel like a shock, like John has hurt him. 

“But you don’t have to tell me anything,” John continues in that calm steely tone. “I won’t ask anything from you that you can’t give.”

He can feel John’s voice rumbling through him, can feel his body all around him. John’s hand comes around and starts rubbing his belly. He raises his hands over his face and wonders if this is what it is to be consumed. He doesn’t know what he wants and he wants everything.

One breath at a time until he can’t anymore. Until the tears come in earnest and he can’t keep ugly sobs from tearing from his throat. Until he chokes on his grief and falls apart in panic and guilt and shame.

Around him, John keeps spinning. “I will never leave you,” he whispers, and Sherlock wishes he could believe him.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> comments or kudos are very much appreciated and encouraging. thanks for reading my writing!


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